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Derek Mahon
| birth_place = Belfast, Northern Ireland | occupation = Poet Journalist | nationality = Irish | genre = Poetry | movement = Modernism | influences = Samuel Beckett, W.B. Yeats, Louis MacNeice, W.H. Auden, Eric Faherty | influenced = Eavan Boland, Seamus Heaney, Eamon Grennan }} Derek Mahon (born 23 November 1941) is a Northern Irish poet. Life Mahon was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, the only child of Ulster Protestant working class parents. His father and grandfather worked at Harland and Wolff while his mother worked at a local flax mill. During his childhood, he claims he was something of a solitary dreamer, comfortable with his own company yet aware of the world around him. Interested in literature from an early age, he attended Skegoneil Primary school and then the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. At Inst he encountered fellow students who shared his interest in literature and poetry. The school produced a magazine to which Mahon produced some of his early poems. According to the critic Hugh Haughton his early poems were highly fluent and extraordinary for a person so young. Mahon pursued third level studies at Trinity College, Dublin where he edited Icarus, and formed many friendships with writers such as Michael Longley, Eavan Boland and Brendan Kennelly. He started to mature as a poet. He left Trinity in 1965 to take up studies at the Sorbonne in Paris. After leaving the Sorbonne in 1966 he worked his way through Canada and the United States. In 1967 he published his first collection of poems Night Crossing. He taught in a school in Dublin and worked in London as a free lance journalist. He currently lives in Kinsale, Co. Cork. Writing Thoroughly educated and with a keen understanding of literary tradition, Mahon came out of the tumult of Northern Ireland with a formal, moderate, even restrained poetic voice. In an era of free verse, Mahon has often written in received forms, using a broadly applied version of iambic pentameter that, metrically, resembles the "sprung foot" verse of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Some poems rhyme. Even the Irish landscape itself is never all that far from the classical tradition, as in his poem "Achill": Croagh Patrick towers like Naxos over the water And I think of my daughter at work on her difficult art And wish she were with me now between thrush and plover, Wild thyme and sea-thrift, to lift the weight from my heart. He has also explored the genre of ekphrasis (the poetic reinterpretation of visual art). In that respect he has been interested in 17th century Dutch and Flemish art. Mahon has been cited as a major influence by a number of Irish poets, including Seamus Heaney, Eavan Boland and Eamon Grennan. Recognition On 23 March 2007 Mahon was awarded the David Cohen Prize for Literature. He won the Poetry Now Award in 2006 for his collection, Harbour Lights, and again in 2009 for his Life on Earth collection.Mahon wins 'Irish Times' poetry prize for new collection Irish Times, 2009-03-28. Publications Poetry *''Twelve Poems''. Belfast: Festival Publications, 1967. *''Design for a Grecian Urn''. Erato Press, 1967. *''Night-Crossing''. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1968. *''Ecclesiastes''. Phoenix Pamphlet Poets, 1969. *''Beyond Howth Head''. Dolmen, 1970. *''Lives''. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1972. *''The Man Who Built His City in the Snow''. London: Poem-of-the-Month Club, 1972. *''The Snow Party''. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1975. *(With Seamus Heaney) In Their Element: A Selection of Poems. Arts Council of Northern Ireland, 1977. *''Light Music''. Ulsterman Publications, 1977. *''The Sea in Winter'' (illustrations by Timothy Engelland). Deerfield Press, 1979. *''Poems, 1962-1978''. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1979. *''Courtyards in Delft''. Gallery Books, 1981. *''The Hunt by Night''. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1982. *''A Kensington Notebook''. London: Anvil Press Poetry, 1984. *''Antarctica''. Gallery Press, 1986. *''Selected Poems''. Gallery Press, 1990; New York: Viking, 1991. *''The Yaddo Letter''. Gallery Press, 1992. *''The Hudson Letter''. Winston-Salem, NC: Wake Forest University Press, 1996. *''The Yellow Book''. Gallery Press, 1997. *''Roman Script''. Gallery Press, 1999. *''Collected Poems''. Gallery Press, 1999. *''The Seaside Cemetary'' (drawings by Fionnuala Nå Chiosain). Gallery Press, 2001. *''Resistance Days''. Gallery Press, 2001. *Harbour Lights, Gallery Press, 2005. *''Somewhere the Wave''. Gallery Press, 2007. *''Life on Earth''. Gallery Press, 2008. *''An Autumn Wind''. Gallery Press, 2010. Plays *''High Time'' (1-act play based on Moliere's comedy The School for Husbands; first produced in Belfast at the Lyric Theatre, October, 1984). Gallery Books, 1985. *''The School for Wives'' (2-act play based on Moliere's comedy of the same name). Gallery Books, 1986. *The Bacchae: After Euripides (play), Gallery Books (Oldcastle, Co. Meath, Ireland), 1991. Prose *''Journalism: Selected prose, 1970-1995'' (edited by Terence Brown). Gallery Press, 1996. *Foreword to John Minihan, An Unweaving of Rainbows: Images of Irish writers. London: Souvenir Press, 1998. Translated *Gerard de Nerval, The Chimeras. Gallery Books, 1982. *Raphaele Billetdoux, Night without Day. Viking, 1987. *Philippe Jaccottet, Selected Poems. Penguin, 1988. *''Racine's Phaedra''. Gallery Books, 1996. *''When Tunnels Meet: Contemporary Romanian Poetry'' (translated with others; edited by John Fairleigh). Bloodaxe, 1996. *Saint-John Perse, Birds. Gallery Press, 2002. *Edmund Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac: A new version of Edmund Rostand's "Heroic comedy". Gallery Press, 2004. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.Derek Mahon b. 1941, Poetry Foundation, Web, Nov. 1, 2012. Audio / video *''Derek Mahon'' (cassette). London: British Council, 1973. *''Derek Mahon Reads His Poetry'' (audiobook). Ceimini, 1973. *''Freedom and Necessity in Irish Verse'' (tape). New York: Academy of American Poets, 1988. Except where noted, discographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Derek Mahon + audiobook, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Oct. 20, 2015. See also *List of Irish poets References * Allen Randolph, Jody. Derek Mahon: A Comprehensive Bibliography. Irish University Review: Special Issue: Derek Mahon 24.1 (Spring/Summer 1994): 131-156. * Reggiani, Enrico. In Attesa della Vita, Introduzione alla Poetica di Derek Mahon, Vita e Pensiero, Milano 1996, pp. 432 ristampa: 2005 * Haughton, Hugh. The Poetry of Derek Mahon. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Notes External links ;Poems * "A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford" from The Poem. * Derek Mahon profile & 1 poem ("Achill") at the Academy of American Poets. * Poem of the Week: "The Seasons" at The Guardian *Derek Mahon b. 1941 at the Poetry Foundation. *Derek Mahon at Poetry International (7 poems) ;Audio / video * Griffin Poetry Prize reading, including video clip * Derek Mahon at YouTube ;About * Griffin Poetry Prize biography * * "Painting into Poetry: The case of Derek Mahon" by Rajeev S. Patke. Category:Poets from Northern Ireland Category:People from Belfast Category:University of Paris alumni Category:Culture of Northern Ireland Category:David Cohen Prize recipients Category:Aosdána members Category:French–English translators Category:1941 births Category:Irish poets Category:Living people Category:Cholmondeley Award winners Category:20th-century poets Category:21st-century poets Category:English-language poets Category:Poets